


Equitable, in the end

by orphan_account



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: All angels are gender-queer, All demons too, Other, Punishment, they/them pronouns for them both
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 18:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18321209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: noodling about with an Aziraphale gets turned into a human as punishment thing that my brain decided it wanted to poke at briefly, should eventually get more chapters but who knows when my brain will produce more.





	Equitable, in the end

“It’s just for the next century or so,” Aziraphale says quietly as they run fingers down Crowley’s spine. “It will be over before you realize.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I, but…” Aziraphale sighs, and traces the shape of Crowley’s shoulder blade with their lips. “It just seems a bit… incautious. As if we’re flaunting it. I would rather not anger my superiors any more than I already have. Or yours.”

“You could just say you’ve gotten tired of me and be done with it,” Crowley grumbles.

“Never that, my dear,” Aziraphale answers, pulling Crowley close, simply holding them. “Never that.”

* * *

There’s a reckoning. There was always going to be. Aziraphale finds it equitable, in the end. The punishment fitting the crime, and at least…

At least their superiors are letting them forget. Filling in the gaps, even, so that Aziraphale can live an almost normal life. There’s only one regret, but there’s nothing they can do about that now.

After all, by the time they’re back on earth, they’ll have forgotten.

* * *

When Crowley finally realizes something is wrong, they’re doing what they’ve done a dozen times a month—well, a week, really, but they would never admit it to themself—since Aziraphale first said that they ought to spend some time apart, and is driving down the road that Aziraphale’s book shop is on. They don’t notice the wrongness at first, but something about that brief glance has them circling the block and driving by again, slowing, parking half on the sidewalk and partially through a parking meter without noticing.

The windows—those cluttered, crowded windows, dark with dust and the bookcases always shoved half in front of them—are gleaming with cleanliness, and careful selections of books are displayed in them.

They enter the book shop cautiously. Surely Aziraphale is fine, surely they will look at Crowley and hiss something angry about how Crowley shouldn’t be here and pull them into the back room of the shop to chew them out.

The shop is full of people, browsing the books. Behind the desk, instead of the angel Crowley is expecting, is a dark-skinned human with silver coils of hair springing out of their head every-which way. They’re comfortable-looking, all plush and rounded, one of those people who, as they aged, wound up with a face in which gender had become indistinguishable, and who, in tweed trousers and a bulky sweater, were undistinguished in every other way as well.

As Crowley watches, the human wraps a book—some first edition or another—in brown paper and ties the parcel with a string. They smile as they hand the book back to the person purchasing it, and that smile is so familiar…

Crowley cannot stay there an instant longer. They almost rip the Bentley apart in their haste to get away; freeing it from the parking meter that appeared to have sprung up through the middle of the hood and which had been drawing a curious crowd turns into a much more careful operation than they have the patience for now. They will the Bentley back into one piece.

The parking meter is, unfortunately, much worse for wear after its encounter with the Bentley.

* * *

Azzie Fell, proprietor of A.Z. Fell’s Books, finds themself staring after the tall person in sunglasses who had just fled the bookshop as if the hounds of hell were on their heels, searching after a reason why said person would be familiar and finding nothing. They weren’t a regular, that much was certain. Azzie thinks they would have noticed someone like that, if they’d been coming to the book shop regularly.

Perhaps a friend from university? University had been so very long ago, and Azzie was fairly certain they had forgotten almost everyone they had met from those days.

Their attention is drawn a few minutes later by a customer, and they forget about the stranger until that night, when they find their mind lingering on the stranger in sunglasses over over a pot of tea and a fry-up.

Well. Perhaps the stranger would come back.

Azzie rather thinks they would like that.


End file.
